ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 208, 3 September 1934, Page 11

ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH

LORD BLEDISLOE’S ADVICE : NEED FOR MORE MILK MATTERS FOR INVESTIGATION“Why, with your excellent climate, are your hospitals s>o lullY” asked the! Governor-General in an address to I trampers in Christchurch, says tire I’ivss. His Excellency asked some I searching questions about tuv heaidi of New Zealanders, and offered some I to investigators of the] problem. The hospitals involved al very heavy financial charge on the public, and it had to be considered whether it would not be a very line financial investment to reduce their activities, said His Excellency. The Blanket system and New Zealand’s low infantile mortality was the answer to the suggestion that the full hospitals might be caused by insufficient nutriment of babies at or .shortly what he considered were the minimum conditions that should be imposed on builders of houses intended for letting at fairly low rentals. The conditions finally agreed upon included the following stipulations:— Yellow bricks are not to be used in the elevation. Terra-cotta, glazed, or hard patent red bricks are not be used in face work; purple slates are not permitted on roofs. All half-timber work must be properly constructed and framed together and must not be sham. No coloured glass shall be permitted! the windows. The work of the Architectural Association is based upon a programme oflive years’ study, proceeding from I I simple to complex problems, eucourag- | ing in the student “the power to. analyse rapidly and to grasp the reI quirements of a building programme,l to co-ordinate essential factors, to, visualise practical and aesthetic pos.si-1 bilitres, and —not the least, important I —to take full advantage of existing! sources of infornitaion.’’ At every, stage design is accompanied by relev-, ant research into solutions of similar problems in historical and contemporary buildings. Diploma Thesis. The work of the students was to be j.een in the several galleries of the school. The most interesting were the “Diploma Thesis” designs by fifthyear students. Here the princtples, derived from the study of the past anil observation of present, requirements,) are seen digested and expresed in some j excellent designs, mostly for largescale buildings, or groups of buildings, | of contemporary application. Some of the designs are “A National Opera House’’ lor a site m l*ark j Square, Regent’s Park; “A Fruit and ! Vegetable Market”; a “Crematorium”; “A Tuberculosis Sana- | torium”; and “Headquarters of World Airways.” I The last-mentioned work is by Miss M. J. Blanco White, a granddaughter of the late Mr. W. Pember-Reeves. Miss Blanco White re-as placed third in the prize list for general work for fifth-year students, the thesis not being considered in reference to the allocation of prizes. Her choice of subpect was based on a pamphlet written recently which advocates the internationalisation of air. forces with a view to obviating aerial war in the future. She selected ground on the seafront near Athens for her suggested aerodrome, and has developed the plans with great skip «nd originality.

after birth, said Lord Blvdisloe. Was it insufficient or unsuitable nutriment given in early childhood, causing youthful malnutrition, with constitutional abnormality throughout life? Be re'ae not so sure oi that, and the Blanket system did not help quite so much there. Was it lack of balance in the human ration after childhood? Was it due to lack of regular and healthy exercise 1 Or was it due to intemperance—not necessarily the intemperance of alcohol, but of other kinds? At 1 least as many persons died from overeating as from over drinking, said His ExcellencyCause of Some Ailments. i His Excellency suggested that the i cause of some of the ailments might be I found to exist in the nature of the country. In various parts uf the Dominion there was a very serious lack of lime, and in some other places, of phosphates. He thought himself right in suggesting that tire structure of bones and teeth was largely made up of phosphate of lime, and that unless a human being took into the system phosphate of lime fie could not be expected to have bone fully provided and perfectly sound. In New Zealand there was a very low consumption oi milk by children, when compared with that in other countries, and in some districts the milk was seriously deficient in lime, continued His Excellency. Might that not be one ot the reasons that New Zealand children suffered from diseases oi the teeth and malnutrition and the diseases following malnutrition? Ju England, where definite tests were carried out among slum children, it had been proved that it was far better even to give children milk which was | to a certain extent unclean, rather than I to have them without milk at all. | It had been found that when children i who had been getting insufficient milk ; had their milk diet increased, at the * order of a public authority in Engl land, the incidence of tuberculosis m I childhood had decreased remarkably. There reus a surplus supply of milk if [ both the Old Country and New Zea | land, and would not not Ire tru< ; humanitarianism as well a»s a good fin uncial investment to see that younj I people had a sufficiency of milk, ever j at the public expense, His Excellency asked. Deteriorat.on of Teeth. .His Excellency added that there was no doubt that many young people were suffering from unsound teeth. One of the reasons was probably that men did not use tlreir teeth for biting the hard substances such as their fore fathers had to do before the development of tasteful, soft cooking. The same deterioration applied to failing eyesight. Surely such developments I were due to the urbanisation of life. Tn Great Britain the Beople’s League of Health, working along similar channels to the Sunlight League and I the Youth Hotels’ Association, was doing splendid work in educating people along lines which would assist in combating those The league of health in England, for instance, was doing fine work in stemming the development of the insidious diseases of tuberculosis. How could one develop character when suffering from chronic dyspepsia, asked His Excellency. Yet that was all too preval ent in New Zealand and in other coun tries, simply because of the failure o: people to follow the ordinary rules o nature.